Abstract: General Introduction
Tournament level duplicate bridge is a card game that is a sport. As is the case with sports, generally, there is an overseeing body: in basketball it is the National Basketball Association (NBA); in bridge it is the American Contract Bridge League for North America (ACBL) and the World Bridge Federation (WBF) for all nations in the world. The ACBL is a non-profit organization based in Memphis, Tennessee. The ACBL has about 150,000 members in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico. The WBF has more than 10 million members. The ACBL owns two buildings in Memphis where they house a large staff to maintain records, databases, publications, and a host of other operations associated with this business in the entertainment/sports sector of the business world. The second author of this work is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the ACBL. This Board, as do equivalent boards of other corporations, sets policy for the organization, makes decisions that affect the entire population of ACBL members, and oversees the work of the Chief Executive Officer. There are 25 Board members, each representing one geographical "district" of the ACBL. Thus, the members of the Board of Directors are also referred to, even though their charge is to represent the interests of the entire ACBL, "District Directors."
Club Data
Duplicate bridge is played in tournaments that vary in level from "national championships" to "regional" or "sectional" championships. There are tournament opportunities throughout the nation on a fairly regular basis, including three North American Bridge Championships per year. Regionals and Sectionals are more frequent and cater to geographic regions more localized than that of the continent. If, however, one wishes to play on a daily basis, then playing at local bridge clubs may be an attractive alternative. Clubs are also often a pleasant place for beginners to learn, away from the intense competition of the tournament scene. Aileen Osofsky, National Goodwill Chair of the ACBL, expressed to the first author a desire to have a map/data system that would enable her to pinpoint groupings clubs in an effort to more easily extend goodwill to newcomers and promote bridge as a sport to younger players. In this situation the goodwill and recruitment policy is informed and guided by maps.